Space & Astronomy

Huge black hole is spinning so fast that it's distorting space-time

By T.K. Randall
November 30, 2023

Image: First image of our black hole (Sgr A*)
Credit: EHT Collaboration (European Southern Observatory) / CC BY 4.0 (adapted) Deep at the very heart of the Milky Way lies a behemoth of galactic proportions.

Known as Sagittarius A*, this gargantuan (or supermassive) black hole has an almost incomprehensible mass equivalent to 4.1 billion Suns and measures 32 million miles in diameter.

Exactly how this enormous black hole came to form, as well as the role it played in the formation of the galaxy, is not yet fully understood.Now in a new study, scientists have used data collected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory telescope to calculate the speed at which Sagittarius A* is spinning.

The team discovered that the black hole is spinning so rapidly that it is literally dragging space-time along with it.

"If you have a rapidly rotating black hole, the space-time around it is not symmetric - the spinning black hole is dragging all of the space-time around with it," lead study author Ruth Daly told CNN.

"It squishes down the space-time, and it sort of looks like a football."

Source: Business Insider

Tags: Black Hole